


All The Fires of Hell

by WanderingAlice



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Confessions, First Kiss, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-05
Updated: 2019-06-05
Packaged: 2020-04-08 03:11:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19098568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WanderingAlice/pseuds/WanderingAlice
Summary: It is said that the fires of hell are hotter than any earthly flame. This is true. What is not said, but is also true, is that all demons remember the pain of when they were first cast into it. It was a pain that, no matter how hard he tried, Crowley was never able to forget. It was also only the second worst pain he had ever felt. The worst happened just hours before the apocalypse was set to begin.---Or, it takes almost losing him for Crowley to be able to confess just how much he cares about Aziraphale.





	All The Fires of Hell

**Author's Note:**

> So, this was the first thing I've been able to write/finish on my own in something like three years. I may be a bit out of practice, but damn did it feel good to get this out. 
> 
> Please feel free to point out errors. I'm not British, so there may be some things I've missed. This hasn't been beta-read.
> 
> (For those of you who have read my works in progress, now that the creative juice is flowing again I'll try to get back to them, but it may be a while. I haven't forgotten you, I promise.)

It is said that the fires of hell are hotter than any earthly flame. This is true. What is not said, but is also true, is that all demons remember the pain of when they were first cast into it. It was a pain that, no matter how hard he tried, Crowley was never able to forget. It was also only the second worst pain he had ever felt. The worst happened just hours before the apocalypse was set to begin.

 

* * *

 

 

He felt Aziraphale’s light go out. Like the explosion of a light bulb or a grenade, it was there, and then, quite suddenly, it wasn’t. For just a second, Crowley froze. The earth tumbled on at 110,000 kilometers per hour. The apocalypse marched forward with unequivocal intent. Hastur flew through the phone line at the speed of sound. Life flowed all around him, unconcerned that something so wonderful had just been snuffed out. But for that one second - that one, painful, interminable second, Crowley’s world froze. And then it righted itself, and he flung himself up out of the phone line and back into a world that now had an angel-shaped hole in it.

 

His heart ached like it had been ripped from his chest, sharp and bloody. He cried out with his mind, reaching for the space the angel had occupied in his senses, only to find it empty and raw. _No_ , he thought, and refused to believe it. He wouldn’t - couldn’t - allow it to be true. Aziraphale wouldn’t be so bloody _stupid_ to let himself get killed. He _wouldn_ _’t_. Crowley would find him in his bookshop even now, and he’d look up and frown at him with that perfect blend displeasure and welcome, and want to know why he’d been so shockingly rude on the phone. Yes. That was it. It had to be. He needed to see it for himself, just… just to be sure.

 

Crowley ran, as if all four horsemen personally were chasing him. In moments, he was in the Bentley, driving faster than he ever had before. The angel-shaped hole in his world burned like a freshly cauterized wound. And somewhere in London a bookshop went up in flames.

 

* * *

 

 

It was like the pain of Falling, all over again. He burned, and Aziraphale’s bookshop burned with him. He could still feel it, the divine light mixed in with the fire. Not just Aziraphale’s gentle and good kind of power, but something strong, something _deadly_. They’d done it. Somehow, Gabriel and his lot had found out about their arrangement, and they’d done just what Crowley had always feared they would. They’d destroyed the one person in the entire blessed universe that Crowley cared about. He’d never even had the chance to- to tell him how he felt. How, underneath all the swagger and arrogance, all he really wanted was to pick the angel up by his coat, shove him against the wall like he’d done in the old convent, and snog the living daylights out of him. And even if he couldn’t have that, if he couldn’t have Aziraphale’s love, he’d settle for his friendship. For days feeding ducks by the pond, helping each other out on assignments, and hours sitting by his side, watching him enjoy some culinary delight he’d heard about. He would have Fallen all over again for even one more hour with his angel. And the worst bit, the really worst bit, was that Aziraphale would never know how much he meant to him. So lost in his own misery and anger was he that the demon almost didn’t feel the jet from the hose that knocked him off his feet. Pushing himself to his knees, he screamed his rage and pain to the sky, which, like everything else right now, crashed down on top of him.

 

Under the flaming debris of what used to be Aziraphale’s second floor, Crowley curled into a ball, pressing the _Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter_ to his chest, and screamed again. Once again, he could feel it - his divine essence being torn from him, his wings burning to black, eyes changing from some color he couldn’t even remember to yellow and snake-like. Of course, all of that had been thousands of years ago, but he remembered the pain. It had been worse than anything he could have ever imagined. The pain of losing Aziraphale was worse, even, than that.

 

After what had felt like eons to Crowley, but had only been a few minutes, he straightened himself out and stood up. He may have just lost the only thing that was worth living for in this great bloody blessed world, but the apocalypse was still on. There was no point in going to Alpha Centauri now. What use was an eternity in hiding, if the only person he had to share it with was himself? No. There was only one thing to do now. And that was to go and get roaring drunk one last time and await the end, when he could rise up in battle and take his revenge on as many angels as he could get his hands on. It wouldn’t bring his angel back, but it would have to be enough. He took Aziraphale’s book and went looking for a place to appropriately drown his sorrows.

 

The demon got so drunk, so quickly, that he didn’t really feel it when the angel-shaped hole repaired itself with a quiet ‘pop’. It wasn’t until Aziraphale, discorporated but still _there_ , was sitting right in front of him that he realized what had happened. Once he put it together, his relief was so strong that he didn’t even need to make an effort to become sober, he just _was_. And because it was Aziraphale, he had figured it out. And _taken notes_. And then there was too much to do, and too little time to do it in, and Crowley barely noticed that the pain was gone.

 

Oh yes. The pain of losing Aziraphale was gone, but Crowley remembered it. And just like the pain of Falling, he always would.

 

* * *

 

After, when everything was all said and done, Crowley gave Aziraphale a ride home from the Ritz and they both got pleasantly drunk in the bookshop’s back room. It was almost like nothing had changed. And, in some ways, nothing had. However, in others, everything had changed.

 

It was in the quiet lull in conversation, where all the unimportant stuff had been said and the important stuff was lurking just on the tips of their tongues, that Aziraphale looked over and noticed that Crowley was crying.

 

“Crowley?” he asked, alarmed. He’d never seen Crowley cry before. In fact, up until that point, he hadn’t been certain that the demon even _could_ cry. “Are you alright?”

 

“What? ‘M fine. Of course I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be fine?” Crowley turned away from him, trying and failing to wipe his tears without the angel seeing.

 

“You, uh, you’re. Well, you’re crying.” Aziraphale moved closer, concerned.

 

Crowley hunched his shoulders and refused to look at the angel. “It’s nothing. Really. Nothing. Nothing at-” he’d meant to end it with ‘nothing at all’, but the ‘all’ got cut off in a sob he couldn’t quite force down.

 

Aziraphale was at a loss. He’d never been all that good with crying people, really. Especially not crying people who were important to him. “Do you… do you want to talk about it?” he offered.

 

“ _No_ ,” Crowley said sharply. Then, after a minute, in a much smaller voice, he said “It’s just… you were gone. You were gone, and I was here, _alone_. And it _hurt_. Satan it hurt, losing you.” The demon hunched in on himself, as if, in making himself seem smaller, the memory of the pain might become less.

 

Aziraphale paused, then, tentatively, in the way one might approach a wounded lion one knows very well but that could still lash out and hurt you because of its own pain, he placed a hand on Crowley’s shoulder. “I know. But I’m here now. And I won’t go away again.”

 

Another minute passed like that. Crowley hunched up on a chair, hiding his face in his knees. Aziraphael standing at his back, one hand resting gently on his shoulder. The silence hung between them, now that heavy kind of silence that comes when an important conversation you’ve been putting off is hanging over your head, and you know what’s going to be said next is going to upend your whole world, but you don’t know whether that’s a bad thing or a good one. And then -

 

“I would have burned them all for you, you know. Gabriel, Michael, Sandalphon, Uriel. You were gone, and the war was going to happen. And all I - all I could think of was burning the ones that killed you. Burning them, like I thought they’d burned you. And then, when they were standing there, smirking at you - me, really, but they thought it was you - and they wanted you to walk into the fire _willingly._ And I could have taken that fire, turned it back in their faces and burned them all to dust. I wanted to do it, so, so badly. Still want to, actually.”

 

“Oh.” Aziraphale wasn’t quite sure how to respond to that. On one hand, the thought of killing anyone, even Gabriel, made him sick. On the other, well, he was extremely flattered that Crowley thought him, of all people, worth killing over. “Why didn’t you, then?”

 

“You need… Up There… to leave you alone. If I’d killed them, as you, they wouldn’t have ever let you go.”

 

Another heavy moment passed. Crowley resisted the urge to look at Aziraphale. He didn’t know if he wanted to see the angel’s expression. The silence weighed on him, pressing down, urging him to fill it. He gritted his teeth and resisted it, until it was finally too much.

 

“ _Say something, bless it_!” he yelled, turning to look wretchedly at the angel, preparing himself for the condemnation that was sure to come. To his shock, Aziraphale didn’t look upset, just surprised, and maybe a little sad. The angel squeezed Crowley’s shoulder gently.

 

“You know,” he said quietly, “I felt much the same. When I was on trial as you, I mean. I knew it was me there, but it was you they wanted to - to destroy. And I felt, well. To keep you safe, I would have brought the wrath of heaven upon them. Only, well, it wouldn’t have. Kept you safe, I mean. So I didn’t. But, the thing is. The thing is, I still _would_.”

 

Crowley reached up and covered the angel’s hand with his, pressing it down against his shoulder.

 

“I think… hmm.” He stopped, glancing at the angel beside him.

 

Aziraphale, perhaps recognizing this as one of the very rare moments in which Crowley was trying to be entirely honest,* shifted just a little bit closer, letting their knees touch while he bent down and looked into the demon’s eyes. “It’s alright,” he said, unable to hide the tenderness in his voice, and not quite sure anymore that he had to. “You don’t have to say it.”

 

Crowley looked away. Call him a coward, but he just didn’t think he was strong enough to watch his angel’s face as he said what he needed to say.

 

When he spoke, his voice was soft, only audible to the angel’s supernatural hearing. “I don’t think I’m very good at being a demon.” He held up a hand to forestall any platitudes, however well meant, from Aziraphale. “I’m not, because demons aren’t supposed to even know _how_ to love. And here I’ve gone and done it.”

 

“Well,” Aziraphale said after a moment’s consideration. “I don’t think I’m very good at being an angel either. You see, we’re supposed to love all things equally. All creatures great and small. No favorites. Nothing, you know, _personal_. And yet, I find that I do love some things more than others. One thing. One _person_ , in particular.” He blushed, having said far more than he had ever intended to say on the matter.

 

The silence stretched between them, more comfortable now, but still filled with the same things that had been going unsaid for centuries now. Three words that had been on the tips of their tongues every time they’d been together for so long neither of them could even remember when it had started. He could leave it like this, Crowley knew. Remove the risk of losing Aziraphale when the angel inevitably panicked about the whole situation. Give up what _could but might not be_ in favor of keeping what, against all odds, he still has. _Oh what the hell,_ he thought. _May as well say it_. He opened his mouth and-

 

“I love you.”

 

Crowley blinked. He was quite certain those words hadn’t come from him.

 

“I love you, Crowley,” Aziraphale repeated. “And I’m sick and tired of pretending to myself that I don’t. So there. Now you know. I’ve said it, even though I promised myself I never would.”

 

“Angel,” Crowley said, and now Aziraphale wouldn’t look at him. “Angel, look at me. Aziraphale.” He reached out and gently turned the angel’s face towards his. “You know,” he said quietly, when those wonderful blue eyes met his. “This, you and me, it isn’t supposed to be possible.”

 

“Averting the apocalypse wasn’t supposed to be possible either,” Aziraphale said, voice just above a whisper.

 

Then Crowley smiled, a true, rare, honest smile that held all of things he was feeling but couldn’t quite name. “Well then. I suppose you won’t be surprised when I say I find I’m able to do all sorts of impossible things when you’re around.” He stood, free hand snaking around Aziraphale’s waist to pull him closer. Then he tilted his head slightly until their foreheads were pressed together. He was so close now, closer than he’d ever been. He could feel Aziraphale’s breath across his face as he gasped in surprise, hear the angel’s heartbeat speed up.

 

“Crowley, I, um, that is,” Aziraphale stammered, and Crowley lifted a hand to press one finger against his angel’s lips.

 

“I think,” he said, bringing his lips close enough to brush said finger as he spoke, “that must be because I love you.”

 

Aziraphale made a soft noise against Crowley’s finger, and that was all it took to break the small shred of restraint that Crowley had left. After, they would argue about who had moved first. About who was better at kissing. About who had waited longest to make a move. What they would never argue about, however, was that, as first kisses go, it was both more divine and more sinful than either had ever dreamed it would be.

 

* * *

 

 

It is said that the fires of hell are hotter than any earthly flame. This is true. What is also true, is that there is one fire in all of creation that burns far more brightly even than those. And that fire lives entirely within the heart of the only demon who has ever managed to learn to love an angel with all of his being, and also within the heart of the only angel who has found that, despite everything that says he shouldn’t, he returns that love with everything he is.

 

The End

 

*He’d had two since he’d fallen, including this one. The first had been in 1249 BC, when, huddled together in a corner of some street in Troy as the Greek armies sacked the city, he’d told Aziraphale how he hadn’t meant to Fall. The moment had ended, however, before the angel had been able to ask just what questions he’d asked to make God throw him from Heaven.


End file.
